Hi friends. How are you? Things around here are slowly but surely getting into a rhythm and new routines. I switched jobs last month, which has been very much helpful overall to my mental health and sanity. Slowly I am starting to feel more like myself, which has meant more baking and crafting and, overall, the things I used to do and love.

With the holidays coming up, I’ve thrown myself into my holiday treat making. This week we made candied orange peels, while the Little Mr chowed down on the oranges when he was supposed to be juicing them for our breakfast orange juice. I can’t complain, really, because it kept him occupied. We played Christmas music and danced and laughed and, overall, had a lovely time together in the kitchen. Today I’m baking molasses cookies, and I’m supposed to be baking chocolate mint cookies, too, but at the rate I’m going I might just do those later this week. Now that I’m not stressed so much I’m finding that I actually have energy to come home and bake and cook again, so it’s easier to plan on that.

I think I’ve also decided to go full ahead with the garden again, this year. Can you believe that? Who knew a bad job could suck so much life out of you?! I’ve even begun thinking of 2018 and how I want to do things differently, now that I have some room to breathe again. Be more centered, I guess, and conscious of the ways I’m spending my time. I’ve started journaling (in a real, paper journal) because some things just aren’t really meant for the public to read and I think that’s helped a lot with some things. I want to start reading again, too. Right now I’m kind of cheating the system and borrowing ebooks from the library to read on my kindle and then turning off network so I still have the book long after my loan expires…. It’s taking me far too long to read a book these days and that’s a shame, really. So if you’ve got any book recommendations, please pass them my way!

I’m trying to think of something to do with the Little Mr for Solstice. It’s something I always want to do and then we never do. Maybe some bird seed ornaments for the tree outside? A craft of some sort? I haven’t decided what, exactly, I want to teach him about the solstice. Part of me loves the folklore/pagan roots of it all, so maybe we’ll explore that.

Nothing new to really report, craft-wise. I have more projects on the needles than I really need and I’ve had a commission or two come up from totally knit-worthy people, so I need to get a move on with those. I’ve always said I wouldn’t take on omissions for my work, but I’ve started making the exception for people I know will truly appreciate the items and so far it’s been a really enjoyable experience. I have been spinning, slowly, too – working on a bit of pretty fiber that I might use to make a pair of mittens out of. I think that’s going to be part of my 2018 goals, too – to spin more, and then actually use my yarn.

I kept busy this weekend with canning. The store had some produce on sale, so I came home with ingredients to make strawberry lemon jam, more sriracha peach sauce, apples for applesauce, cider for a mustard glaze (need to find the mustard seed in bulk, first), and got to work. And then, today, after going thrift store shopping for clothes for the Little Mr (because winter is coming and he’s growing like a weed), my mom handed me this. A giant basket of free pears straight from her tree. Free produce to can and preserve and feed us through winter, should we need it.

Maybe this job loss is what I needed. A reason to get back to my roots, my canning and preserving and being more frugal. Though, it probably would have been better if I had been the one to lose my job, instead, so I’d have more time to make foods from scratch for cheap… but it is what it is.

September was the month of travel and plenty. October, fittingly, becomes the month of becoming homebodies and lean times. The Mr lost his job last week, right at the end of the month. Laid off, technically, because of budget issues though it’s hard to not take it personally when you’re going through all the emotions. Things are, understandably, awkward at home, now. Our routines disrupted and our marriage and parenting flow thrown off. I have been on the verge of quitting my job from the sheer amount of stress and workload (it’s a job for two people and, alas, I’m just one person) so those plans were crushed in a moment. My job doesn’t pay all the bills, but we can survive with the help of our emergency savings (PROTIP – save your money, kids, for that rainy day. It never feels like you’ll need it and then, suddenly, life happens and you’ll be kicking yourself wishing you had. I’ve been a stressed out mess since we found out, and I’d be 1,000x worse if I had to worry about how we’d eat).

I had a random day off of work, thanks to a broken sewer issue and no bathrooms, so I spent some quality time on plans to get back to the way we used to live when we were young and poor. I have no desire to go back to boxed mac and cheese and processed junk, so the challenge now is finding healthy meals that are also cheap to make. And working on our food waste habit that we’ve developed over the last few years – not eating leftovers like we should, not chopping and freezing veggies before they go to waste that can get thrown into soup, etc. It sounds dreadful of me, but after having a kid and then having to not worry about money so much I became lazier about things. And no eating out anymore, either. At least not until we get things figured out on what income, exactly, we’re going to have. That’s going to be the hardest for the Little Mr, who has gotten spoiled with treats this summer in the form of freezes from Taco Bell (Nana is to blame on that one)

So far, we’ve been crazy productive in just a weekend. Since we’re avoiding spending money, we built an old office desk we had before we closed the business office down a few years ago, and that’s now in my craft room along with my computer. And we put up some shelving in the craft room, too – I have this bad habit of having all my craft stuff all over the house because I’ve never had enough storage, so we re-arranged some things in the rest of the house and now I’ve got this wonderful little Ikea Fjallbo unit in the room for storage. I decorated it with things I already had in the craft room, and the little lamp was rescued from my mom’s Goodwill pile.

The biggest stress, right now, is that the holidays aren’t far off. My holiday baking used to have its own budget line item each year, so that will have to be scaled back. I may need to start finding handknits to make (quickly) for holiday gifts, too. It’s far too late to come up with anything big to make for anyone, and there’s always the worry that someone will turn their nose up at a handmade item and not realize that it’s actually more valuable than whatever made-in-a-3rd-world-country piece of plastic would have otherwise been purchased and probably broken in less than a year. I worry too much, I’m sure. Between all the yarn and fabric I have, there has to be SOMETHING I can come up with for at least a few people, though. Even if it’s a few pretty lace hats for the girls in the family.

We had an impromptu weekend away to Put In Bay with some friends and their daughter, which turned into this amazing end-of-season trip. Normally, Put In Bay is pretty packed during the regular season. But, given it was after Labor Day, it turned into the perfect escape. At home, temps were over 80 degrees – at the lake, 70s. Warm and breezy and sunny and just plain beautiful. The weekend was spent at the Butterfly House, where most of the photos were taken, and just kind of lazing about. We’d cook some meals, eat out for others. Naps were taken. Board games were played (Settlers of Catan, which is now my new favorite game). A bit of knitting done, though not much. A perfect end-of-summer weekend before fall sets in. ♥

Found this little cutie taking advantage of my laziness and getting the pollen off my flowering basil. I have a kid-free evening, and decided to throw together a quick garden harvest meal (roasted eggplant, tomatoes, and fresh basil drizzled with some garlic olive oil, served over some pasta… it smells amazing so I’m hoping it tastes just as amazing), so I’m thrilled that coincidence of it all led to getting to watch this little one work for a bit and take a few (blurry) photos. ♥

I can’t decide if I want to curl up with a book and read, or watch a show and knit with this alone time. There are too many possibilities to choose from!

Welcome

Pardon the garden. A phrase I’m most likely to utter anytime anyone visits the house during the growing seasons of spring through fall. Sure, there are pretty flowers and delicious veggies in there somewhere, but they might be a little hard to find amidst the mess of overgrown grass, dandelions, and weeds that have found their way in there and haven’t been pulled. Read On